At least I'm still here
|
Summary:
Nearly two days without sleep, Soren finds himself alone not far from the small family he had just helped stay alive - not once, but twice, now. The entire ordeal has left him with questions and the only one who could have answers would be the deity that had lent him her powers all those years ago. Hopefully he didn't do anything stupid in his exhausted state.
Prompt:
When everything boils over…
Nearly two days without sleep, Soren finds himself alone not far from the small family he had just helped stay alive - not once, but twice, now. The entire ordeal has left him with questions and the only one who could have answers would be the deity that had lent him her powers all those years ago. Hopefully he didn't do anything stupid in his exhausted state.
Prompt:
When everything boils over…
“Ahmed!” Soren stilled on the balcony as his attention moved to the level above him. He recognized the voice as one of the women from the bazaar that had thanked him profusely for bringing Ahmed home. Her hurried footfall came to a stop not far off behind Soren; if he glanced over his left shoulder, he’d be able to make out her face. “How is your husband doing?”
“He is doing well,” Ahmed said, joy and relief thick in the man’s voice. “As is the babe.”
“So they both made it through the birth? I heard from Mariam that there had been a moment where something had gone wrong.”
“Nothing that the Goddess of Life couldn’t handle.” The sound of rubbing fabric informed Soren that the habitual gesture of reverence for the Goddess had been made by both people even as Ahmed kept talking. “From her sending through Soren, my husband and our child are both still in this world. Had he not given life to Dabir when he had, I am certain I would be mourning my husband instead of speaking with you. What would have come of our child is known only by the fates that had woven the path of his death but I fear I would have lost our child within moments of Dabir’s passing.”
The pair moved away, beckoned by the midwife’s voice from within Dabir’s room. Soren settled against the stone wall of the balcony, back to the now vacant terrace above him as he turned his attention to the hints of the city he could see between the buildings. How was it that the last forty-eight hours felt longer than the entire time he had been away from home?
He buried a hand into his hair, fingers wrapping around strands to hold himself in place. He knew why. Beyond making sure Ahmed had made it home safe, he had been Ahmed’s last hope in making sure Dabir survived child birth. Soren wasn’t Hilde, wasn’t proficient in any sort of medicine, but he had magic and the ability to heal some and that apparently had been enough. He had feared at the time that it hadn’t been, that Ahmed’s faith in his ability to help was misplaced, but it had worked. Dabir had made it through, blessing the couple with a baby girl the couple had cried over once the danger had passed.
He hadn’t been able to rest since pushing thirty-six hours without sleep from everything combined.
His thoughts churned of home and his family, of “what had been” and “could be”s, leaving him raw and numb all at once. The image of the newborn child being placed on Dabir’s chest with the couple huddled around the wailing form crying from the fear and relief was burned into his mind. He couldn’t shake how it made his chest ache nor how it pressed in on him as his mind warped the image. It was quick to replace Dabir with Hilde and Ahmed with Garlock but no matter how greatly he desired to be included, to be there if - and when - a child was born to the three of them.
A bitterness filled his chest but he resolved himself against it. He could not fault Hilde and Garlock for ever wanting kids and his absence would not become an excuse for them to deny themselves a larger family if that was what they wanted. Gods knew he had never considered it before now. He was content with their small family and felt no desire to make it bigger. But, then, what had changed? He had been there for Fannel’s second and had thought nothing of it. Now, though, farther from his family than ever, he couldn’t get the thoughts to stop. Endless speculations around a child - or two, or more - spun around his head until he felt nauseous with it.
He jerked away from the wall, the rough texture scratching at his forearms as he did so, as a thought assaulted him. The top of the wall dug into his palms enough to be noticeably uncomfortable but he barely realized he had even grabbed the top of the wall. He stared at some in between space as his mind filled with him in Dabir’s place, a child on his own chest with Garlock and Hilde at his side and he wasn’t sure if it was hope or dread that cut through him.
It could wait and he knew it should but the desire to rid himself of the image, to hear that he was wrong and that his mind had just gotten away from him had him digging out Shar’s sigil. The wooded token was a familiar weight in his palm when he pulled it out of his bag. It was rubbed smooth and stained from the years of handling and battle since Garlock had carved it for him but her sigil was still striking against the grain and it still worked. For a moment, he clenched it, struck by the sudden want for her to not answer his call, but then he forced his hand loose around it and sent it lazily twirling between his fingers with the mild doubt she would even have the answers he sought.
He didn’t have to wait long.
“Ready for home already?” Shar’s voice curled around him, a tease as it danced on the wind between them. From one moment to the next, the space behind him became occupied by a form only he could see if he cared to look. She came to a stop somewhere to his left on the small balcony and he wondered distractedly if she would have molded her form to be his height. “Not that I’m overly surprised to find you eager to return, what with all that has happened. More disappointed at your lack of tact for your hosts.”
The chuckle came out as a huff, amused but strained. “That little faith in me?”
She gave him a skeptical look when he finally looked at her. “I know how you are, Soren. Or are you denying that your thoughts are currently focused on home?”
He chuckled properly this time. “Not denying that,” he assured her, “but, no. I did not call for you to take me home. I’m not done here yet as I’m sure you are well aware.”
“Then why did you call for me?”
He settled his back against the balcony wall, gaze going to what he could see of Dabir’s room. There wasn’t much in the way of sound coming from it but the windows and doorway were still illuminated. Idly the wooden token moved between his fingers in a slow twirl. “Probably off of a misguided desire for answers but I didn’t want to stew in my thoughts if I didn’t have to.”
The distance between them diminished as she came to stand at the wall herself. “Then ask. It’s certainly not going to get you anywhere prattling on as you are without asking.”
Somewhere on the street a story below them someone laughed. Other voices quickly chased the sound to fill the din of the moment it took Soren to get his mouth working again. “I know very little about the genie who gave birth to me,” he found himself stating, starting at a point he was certain was irrelevant to her but soothed the part of him that didn’t want to hear the answer. “Dad rarely talked about them and I’m not sure he even remembered them well enough to answer my questions once I started asking. But the one thing I do know is that when Dad fell in love, it had been with a genie of a male form who changed to a female form because they wanted to have me.” Voices increased on the level above them but he couldn’t quite piece out if it was coming from Dabir’s room or beyond it. It took a moment for him to regain his train of thought. Gods he was tired. He didn’t want to face this. “Dabir…” He lost where that thought had been going. “I know I’m not like Dabir or any others that are like him, but I am able to go between male and female at will as the genie had. Does that…” He pulled in a breath trying to steady himself. It didn’t work. “Does that mean I can get pregnant?”
“As you are now? Probably not.”
He rolled his eyes, grateful that part of it was out of amusement. “Female, though?” he clarified, his tone remaining neutral.
Shar’s expression closed off out of the corner of his eye and Soren knew it was a warning to watch where he tread. “Having children will not get you out of my service, Soren.”
Had he not already been leaning against the balcony wall, he would have had to scramble for it. He closed his eyes against…was it anguish? or relief? or sorrow that bore down on his chest. “So that’s a yes, then,” slipped off his tongue. A joyless smile pulled his lips from his teeth as he added with heavy sarcasm, “Great.”
“Soren,” she started but he waved whatever it had been off.
“I’m not planning on getting pregnant, Shar,” he assured her, that bitterness in his chest filling his words. He tried to regain some control and failed. He wondered if it was the exhaustion loosening his tongue or the culmination of the last few days. “I wanted to know so that I could avoid getting pregnant. I’m in no place and have no right having children of my own when my life is so interwoven with your whim.”
Shar’s form bristled and Soren felt the wall leave his back. Without thinking he had put his weight back onto his feet, ready for an attack he was confident wasn’t coming. Shar retorted, “Do not put the blame on me. It was your choice to accept our deal as is your choice to have children or not.”
The sigil bit into the inside of his fingers as he gripped at it. Indignation shot through his chest and he met her gaze with what most likely came across as a glare. “Don’t put words into my mouth, Shar. You know as well as I do that I take full responsibility for my stupidity and anything I’ve chosen to do out of it. It was my choice to accept your offer of power and aid all those years ago as it was my choice to accept the consequences of my actions. That doesn’t mean I don’t have a right to feel cheated by the current circumstances every once in a while.”
“Then change the circumstances if you’re so unhappy.”
It was a challenge, a trap, but it slipped right through every emotion pressing down on him and snapped what control he had left. He let out a short bark of a laugh, the grin that pulled across his face far too sharp to be amused. “Change them? And risk what I have now? As shitty as it’s been being away from home for the majority of the year with only a month at a time with my family - if I’m lucky - I’d much rather that than risk never seeing them again simply because I think this is all bullshit!”
The breath he sucked in had to be warm but it felt like ice in his throat, tearing at it much the same the lump in his throat was. “Just because I changed and found a better path to walk that wasn’t chasing after vengeance and shadows doesn’t change the fact that I accepted your help in the first place. It is your right to uphold me to our original agreement, as it is your right to take the payment you see fit for such a favor and I don’t have any right to challenge it when you’ve already being kinder with me than you would have others.”
The edges of his vision blurred with tears but he blinked, suppressing them for just a bit longer. The action, though, quelled more than just tears. A numbness shot through his system calming him down and he didn’t have it in him to fight it, to hold onto the indignation that had driven his rant. “No. It doesn’t matter how much of a normal life I want now or will miss out on - no matter how much of any child’s life I’ll miss out on if we ever decide to have kids - at least I’m still here. At least I still get to be with them even if it's only for a moment every year. I'm not risking that for the small iota of a chance that it could be better.”
For a long moment, Shar simply studied his face. He wasn’t sure what had changed or what she had been waiting for but she blinked and it was like that long moment hadn’t happened. She stepped closer, cupping his cheek with a fond little smile. He didn’t miss the tightness in her expression that gave warning ahead of sharp words. “You foolish mortal. And what if I told you my wife has two souls waiting for you. Would you finally stand up for yourself and finally confront me?”
“Two souls,” he parroted dumbly. He swallowed, recentering himself as best he could when the world felt like it would fall away at the next shift of air. “Two children. Through Hilde.”
Shar rolled her eyes. “You are ridiculously dense at the most inopportune moments, you know that?” She jabbed him in the gut with a finger, spitting as if it were a threat, “Two souls for you to bring into this world. Two souls destined to be given life by you through your very body.”
The world really did fall away - or maybe that was just the strength being suddenly leached from his legs - and he threw an arm over the balcony wall to stay upright.
There should have been thoughts racing through his head. There should have been noise or at the very least a mantra of panic but all he found as he leaned over the top of the wall was the image of Dabir and Ahmed with their newly born child shortly after birth. All he could seem to get to form in his head was “two, two kids” over and over, and it did nothing for him to get himself reoriented. Abruptly he looked to her, “Garlock’s?” tumbling off his tongue at her long before his brain caught up.
She rolled her eyes again but this time he caught the humor in the expression. “Unless you’re planning on doing something stupid.”
He shook his head in response as his legs took back his weight. He couldn’t really feel them but they held. He ran a hand through his hair, gripping at the strands as if it would be anchor enough to keep him from spiraling even more. “Two kids,” he repeated as if saying it again would be enough to get his mind around it. “With Garlock.”
It did the opposite. Instead, he found despair clawing at his chest, a grief he hadn’t been expecting joining the mix as he met her gaze. She was standing before him at her full height, expression closed off to him. “Well?” she challenged. “I’m giving you a chance to have a say in your circumstances, consequence free. What are you willing to live with to have the life you want, Soren? How would you change your circumstances?”
His mouth was dry but hope was a powerful force shoving words over his lips. At first they were stilted but the more he spoke, the stronger and more sure his voice became. “I would…I would have to talk with Garlock and Hilde about the specifics but…” The breath was steady in his chest. “When the first child is born, you can’t call on me for ten years. For ten years you let me and my family raise that child and any others that may follow. Once that ten years has passed, for every decade we are raising our children you get a year of my time. Whether that’s a year all at once or spread out over the ten years in month increments, it doesn’t matter to me, but if you don’t choose to do the full year at once, nothing can take me away from home for longer than a month every six months. Once the youngest turns 20, you can take me away as often as you like but I get to be home for three months minimum at least twice a year.”
An incredulous look filled Shar’s expression. “That’s all?”
He shrugged. “That is what I’m starting with but not what I’m settling on. I still want to speak with Hilde and Garlock but it seems reasonable enough. It gives me time to be with my family, to raise one I never thought I would get.” A wistful little smile tugged at his lips. “Even before the homestead was ransacked, I had never thought of having my own family. My siblings and the families they would make and their children I would have helped with had been enough.” That little smile fell into a neutral expression. “I want the chance to live the life I had believed was out of reach. I want the chance to live the life I glimpsed through Ahmed and Dabir. But that doesn’t mean I hate what you’ve been asking of me. To be your blade has never been a hesitation and I will gladly continue. I only ask that you allow me my family and the chance to rest with them in turn.”
The wind curled around them as his words came to an end. His heart pounded in his chest and he knew if he wasn’t careful, the hope would kill him far more swiftly as any consequence she sent his way. Time moved on around them yet neither of them moved or spoke. Again, she was the one to break the stillness. She stepped up to him, reshaping her form so that they were the same height before she cupped his cheek again. “I will see you in two days, Soren. Do try and get some rest.” She took a step back, a smirk accompanying the mischievous glint in her eye. “And depending on how much trouble you get into, I might actually consider giving you a real chance to change your circumstances.”
She was gone in a flurry of feathers before he could respond. The wooden token was pinned to his chest, the edges of it digging into the inside of his fingers and palm from how tightly he was holding on. He closed his eyes against the urge to cry.
“Soren.” Ahmed’s voice was searching and gave no sign that the other had witnessed anything. Soren opened his eyes and tucked the wooden token back into his bag as if he hadn’t just been through the emotional ringer. Ahmed beamed at him, quickly crossing the balcony to grab hold of Soren’s wrists. “Good. You are still here. Come. Dabir and I wanted you present for the naming.”
“Ahmen,” Soren started but Ahmed waved him off, grinning from ear to ear.
“None of that. And do not worry. Both Dabir and I have come to the conclusion that if we used your name, you would not have taken that as the honor it was. So you will be present instead.”
Soren couldn’t help the soft chuckle that escaped his chest. He was certain there were going to be a lot of things over the next two days that were going to be in his honor that were more than he deserved but as long as Ahmed and Dabir were involved, he trusted the couple to not overdo it at least.
Two more days before he had to decide whether or not he was going to start the conversation about children with Hilde and Garlock.
Two more days before he returned home.
“He is doing well,” Ahmed said, joy and relief thick in the man’s voice. “As is the babe.”
“So they both made it through the birth? I heard from Mariam that there had been a moment where something had gone wrong.”
“Nothing that the Goddess of Life couldn’t handle.” The sound of rubbing fabric informed Soren that the habitual gesture of reverence for the Goddess had been made by both people even as Ahmed kept talking. “From her sending through Soren, my husband and our child are both still in this world. Had he not given life to Dabir when he had, I am certain I would be mourning my husband instead of speaking with you. What would have come of our child is known only by the fates that had woven the path of his death but I fear I would have lost our child within moments of Dabir’s passing.”
The pair moved away, beckoned by the midwife’s voice from within Dabir’s room. Soren settled against the stone wall of the balcony, back to the now vacant terrace above him as he turned his attention to the hints of the city he could see between the buildings. How was it that the last forty-eight hours felt longer than the entire time he had been away from home?
He buried a hand into his hair, fingers wrapping around strands to hold himself in place. He knew why. Beyond making sure Ahmed had made it home safe, he had been Ahmed’s last hope in making sure Dabir survived child birth. Soren wasn’t Hilde, wasn’t proficient in any sort of medicine, but he had magic and the ability to heal some and that apparently had been enough. He had feared at the time that it hadn’t been, that Ahmed’s faith in his ability to help was misplaced, but it had worked. Dabir had made it through, blessing the couple with a baby girl the couple had cried over once the danger had passed.
He hadn’t been able to rest since pushing thirty-six hours without sleep from everything combined.
His thoughts churned of home and his family, of “what had been” and “could be”s, leaving him raw and numb all at once. The image of the newborn child being placed on Dabir’s chest with the couple huddled around the wailing form crying from the fear and relief was burned into his mind. He couldn’t shake how it made his chest ache nor how it pressed in on him as his mind warped the image. It was quick to replace Dabir with Hilde and Ahmed with Garlock but no matter how greatly he desired to be included, to be there if - and when - a child was born to the three of them.
A bitterness filled his chest but he resolved himself against it. He could not fault Hilde and Garlock for ever wanting kids and his absence would not become an excuse for them to deny themselves a larger family if that was what they wanted. Gods knew he had never considered it before now. He was content with their small family and felt no desire to make it bigger. But, then, what had changed? He had been there for Fannel’s second and had thought nothing of it. Now, though, farther from his family than ever, he couldn’t get the thoughts to stop. Endless speculations around a child - or two, or more - spun around his head until he felt nauseous with it.
He jerked away from the wall, the rough texture scratching at his forearms as he did so, as a thought assaulted him. The top of the wall dug into his palms enough to be noticeably uncomfortable but he barely realized he had even grabbed the top of the wall. He stared at some in between space as his mind filled with him in Dabir’s place, a child on his own chest with Garlock and Hilde at his side and he wasn’t sure if it was hope or dread that cut through him.
It could wait and he knew it should but the desire to rid himself of the image, to hear that he was wrong and that his mind had just gotten away from him had him digging out Shar’s sigil. The wooded token was a familiar weight in his palm when he pulled it out of his bag. It was rubbed smooth and stained from the years of handling and battle since Garlock had carved it for him but her sigil was still striking against the grain and it still worked. For a moment, he clenched it, struck by the sudden want for her to not answer his call, but then he forced his hand loose around it and sent it lazily twirling between his fingers with the mild doubt she would even have the answers he sought.
He didn’t have to wait long.
“Ready for home already?” Shar’s voice curled around him, a tease as it danced on the wind between them. From one moment to the next, the space behind him became occupied by a form only he could see if he cared to look. She came to a stop somewhere to his left on the small balcony and he wondered distractedly if she would have molded her form to be his height. “Not that I’m overly surprised to find you eager to return, what with all that has happened. More disappointed at your lack of tact for your hosts.”
The chuckle came out as a huff, amused but strained. “That little faith in me?”
She gave him a skeptical look when he finally looked at her. “I know how you are, Soren. Or are you denying that your thoughts are currently focused on home?”
He chuckled properly this time. “Not denying that,” he assured her, “but, no. I did not call for you to take me home. I’m not done here yet as I’m sure you are well aware.”
“Then why did you call for me?”
He settled his back against the balcony wall, gaze going to what he could see of Dabir’s room. There wasn’t much in the way of sound coming from it but the windows and doorway were still illuminated. Idly the wooden token moved between his fingers in a slow twirl. “Probably off of a misguided desire for answers but I didn’t want to stew in my thoughts if I didn’t have to.”
The distance between them diminished as she came to stand at the wall herself. “Then ask. It’s certainly not going to get you anywhere prattling on as you are without asking.”
Somewhere on the street a story below them someone laughed. Other voices quickly chased the sound to fill the din of the moment it took Soren to get his mouth working again. “I know very little about the genie who gave birth to me,” he found himself stating, starting at a point he was certain was irrelevant to her but soothed the part of him that didn’t want to hear the answer. “Dad rarely talked about them and I’m not sure he even remembered them well enough to answer my questions once I started asking. But the one thing I do know is that when Dad fell in love, it had been with a genie of a male form who changed to a female form because they wanted to have me.” Voices increased on the level above them but he couldn’t quite piece out if it was coming from Dabir’s room or beyond it. It took a moment for him to regain his train of thought. Gods he was tired. He didn’t want to face this. “Dabir…” He lost where that thought had been going. “I know I’m not like Dabir or any others that are like him, but I am able to go between male and female at will as the genie had. Does that…” He pulled in a breath trying to steady himself. It didn’t work. “Does that mean I can get pregnant?”
“As you are now? Probably not.”
He rolled his eyes, grateful that part of it was out of amusement. “Female, though?” he clarified, his tone remaining neutral.
Shar’s expression closed off out of the corner of his eye and Soren knew it was a warning to watch where he tread. “Having children will not get you out of my service, Soren.”
Had he not already been leaning against the balcony wall, he would have had to scramble for it. He closed his eyes against…was it anguish? or relief? or sorrow that bore down on his chest. “So that’s a yes, then,” slipped off his tongue. A joyless smile pulled his lips from his teeth as he added with heavy sarcasm, “Great.”
“Soren,” she started but he waved whatever it had been off.
“I’m not planning on getting pregnant, Shar,” he assured her, that bitterness in his chest filling his words. He tried to regain some control and failed. He wondered if it was the exhaustion loosening his tongue or the culmination of the last few days. “I wanted to know so that I could avoid getting pregnant. I’m in no place and have no right having children of my own when my life is so interwoven with your whim.”
Shar’s form bristled and Soren felt the wall leave his back. Without thinking he had put his weight back onto his feet, ready for an attack he was confident wasn’t coming. Shar retorted, “Do not put the blame on me. It was your choice to accept our deal as is your choice to have children or not.”
The sigil bit into the inside of his fingers as he gripped at it. Indignation shot through his chest and he met her gaze with what most likely came across as a glare. “Don’t put words into my mouth, Shar. You know as well as I do that I take full responsibility for my stupidity and anything I’ve chosen to do out of it. It was my choice to accept your offer of power and aid all those years ago as it was my choice to accept the consequences of my actions. That doesn’t mean I don’t have a right to feel cheated by the current circumstances every once in a while.”
“Then change the circumstances if you’re so unhappy.”
It was a challenge, a trap, but it slipped right through every emotion pressing down on him and snapped what control he had left. He let out a short bark of a laugh, the grin that pulled across his face far too sharp to be amused. “Change them? And risk what I have now? As shitty as it’s been being away from home for the majority of the year with only a month at a time with my family - if I’m lucky - I’d much rather that than risk never seeing them again simply because I think this is all bullshit!”
The breath he sucked in had to be warm but it felt like ice in his throat, tearing at it much the same the lump in his throat was. “Just because I changed and found a better path to walk that wasn’t chasing after vengeance and shadows doesn’t change the fact that I accepted your help in the first place. It is your right to uphold me to our original agreement, as it is your right to take the payment you see fit for such a favor and I don’t have any right to challenge it when you’ve already being kinder with me than you would have others.”
The edges of his vision blurred with tears but he blinked, suppressing them for just a bit longer. The action, though, quelled more than just tears. A numbness shot through his system calming him down and he didn’t have it in him to fight it, to hold onto the indignation that had driven his rant. “No. It doesn’t matter how much of a normal life I want now or will miss out on - no matter how much of any child’s life I’ll miss out on if we ever decide to have kids - at least I’m still here. At least I still get to be with them even if it's only for a moment every year. I'm not risking that for the small iota of a chance that it could be better.”
For a long moment, Shar simply studied his face. He wasn’t sure what had changed or what she had been waiting for but she blinked and it was like that long moment hadn’t happened. She stepped closer, cupping his cheek with a fond little smile. He didn’t miss the tightness in her expression that gave warning ahead of sharp words. “You foolish mortal. And what if I told you my wife has two souls waiting for you. Would you finally stand up for yourself and finally confront me?”
“Two souls,” he parroted dumbly. He swallowed, recentering himself as best he could when the world felt like it would fall away at the next shift of air. “Two children. Through Hilde.”
Shar rolled her eyes. “You are ridiculously dense at the most inopportune moments, you know that?” She jabbed him in the gut with a finger, spitting as if it were a threat, “Two souls for you to bring into this world. Two souls destined to be given life by you through your very body.”
The world really did fall away - or maybe that was just the strength being suddenly leached from his legs - and he threw an arm over the balcony wall to stay upright.
There should have been thoughts racing through his head. There should have been noise or at the very least a mantra of panic but all he found as he leaned over the top of the wall was the image of Dabir and Ahmed with their newly born child shortly after birth. All he could seem to get to form in his head was “two, two kids” over and over, and it did nothing for him to get himself reoriented. Abruptly he looked to her, “Garlock’s?” tumbling off his tongue at her long before his brain caught up.
She rolled her eyes again but this time he caught the humor in the expression. “Unless you’re planning on doing something stupid.”
He shook his head in response as his legs took back his weight. He couldn’t really feel them but they held. He ran a hand through his hair, gripping at the strands as if it would be anchor enough to keep him from spiraling even more. “Two kids,” he repeated as if saying it again would be enough to get his mind around it. “With Garlock.”
It did the opposite. Instead, he found despair clawing at his chest, a grief he hadn’t been expecting joining the mix as he met her gaze. She was standing before him at her full height, expression closed off to him. “Well?” she challenged. “I’m giving you a chance to have a say in your circumstances, consequence free. What are you willing to live with to have the life you want, Soren? How would you change your circumstances?”
His mouth was dry but hope was a powerful force shoving words over his lips. At first they were stilted but the more he spoke, the stronger and more sure his voice became. “I would…I would have to talk with Garlock and Hilde about the specifics but…” The breath was steady in his chest. “When the first child is born, you can’t call on me for ten years. For ten years you let me and my family raise that child and any others that may follow. Once that ten years has passed, for every decade we are raising our children you get a year of my time. Whether that’s a year all at once or spread out over the ten years in month increments, it doesn’t matter to me, but if you don’t choose to do the full year at once, nothing can take me away from home for longer than a month every six months. Once the youngest turns 20, you can take me away as often as you like but I get to be home for three months minimum at least twice a year.”
An incredulous look filled Shar’s expression. “That’s all?”
He shrugged. “That is what I’m starting with but not what I’m settling on. I still want to speak with Hilde and Garlock but it seems reasonable enough. It gives me time to be with my family, to raise one I never thought I would get.” A wistful little smile tugged at his lips. “Even before the homestead was ransacked, I had never thought of having my own family. My siblings and the families they would make and their children I would have helped with had been enough.” That little smile fell into a neutral expression. “I want the chance to live the life I had believed was out of reach. I want the chance to live the life I glimpsed through Ahmed and Dabir. But that doesn’t mean I hate what you’ve been asking of me. To be your blade has never been a hesitation and I will gladly continue. I only ask that you allow me my family and the chance to rest with them in turn.”
The wind curled around them as his words came to an end. His heart pounded in his chest and he knew if he wasn’t careful, the hope would kill him far more swiftly as any consequence she sent his way. Time moved on around them yet neither of them moved or spoke. Again, she was the one to break the stillness. She stepped up to him, reshaping her form so that they were the same height before she cupped his cheek again. “I will see you in two days, Soren. Do try and get some rest.” She took a step back, a smirk accompanying the mischievous glint in her eye. “And depending on how much trouble you get into, I might actually consider giving you a real chance to change your circumstances.”
She was gone in a flurry of feathers before he could respond. The wooden token was pinned to his chest, the edges of it digging into the inside of his fingers and palm from how tightly he was holding on. He closed his eyes against the urge to cry.
“Soren.” Ahmed’s voice was searching and gave no sign that the other had witnessed anything. Soren opened his eyes and tucked the wooden token back into his bag as if he hadn’t just been through the emotional ringer. Ahmed beamed at him, quickly crossing the balcony to grab hold of Soren’s wrists. “Good. You are still here. Come. Dabir and I wanted you present for the naming.”
“Ahmen,” Soren started but Ahmed waved him off, grinning from ear to ear.
“None of that. And do not worry. Both Dabir and I have come to the conclusion that if we used your name, you would not have taken that as the honor it was. So you will be present instead.”
Soren couldn’t help the soft chuckle that escaped his chest. He was certain there were going to be a lot of things over the next two days that were going to be in his honor that were more than he deserved but as long as Ahmed and Dabir were involved, he trusted the couple to not overdo it at least.
Two more days before he had to decide whether or not he was going to start the conversation about children with Hilde and Garlock.
Two more days before he returned home.